"Kill the spy," breathed Madame Death-in-Life; "he knows too much."
"Enough to hang you both." Mallow threw Drabble on one side, ran past Mrs. Arne, and dashed his gloved fist through the window. "Help! help! Police! police!"
"Kill him! Kill him!" shrieked Madame, fiercely.
"Spy!" roared Drabble.
The two men swung and reeled across the floor. Neither uttered a word. With clenched teeth and muscles tense they battled fiercely in the small space. Madame rushed to the door and flung it open.
"A spy! a spy! Danger! Up! up! up!" she cried down the well of the staircase. Immediately there was a noise of rushing feet--a babel of fierce voices. Mallow heard rather than saw the room filling. He had a firm grip on Drabble's throat, and the man was staggering and gurgling for want of breath. Then a hundred hands--as it seemed--plucked him back. He was hurled to the ground, and beaten and trampled into insensibility.
[CHAPTER IX.]
"MAN PROPOSES."
"May I ask, Lord Aldean, if you have ever perused the biography of the celebrated Dr. Johnson of Auchinleck?"
"Yes, Mrs. Purcell, I have. Mallow made me read it when I was cramming for the 'varsity."